A man cycles by a ship at Hachinohe, Aomori Prefecture, northern Japan, Monday, March 14, 2011, three days after a powerful earthquake-triggered tsunami hit Japan’s east coast. (Shizuo Kambayashi/Associated Press)
Vessels float on oil spilled water in Fudai, Iwate, northern Japan Monday, March 14, 201. (Associated Press/Yomiuri Shimbun, Hiroshi Adachi)

A car sits atop another in an area affected by an earthquake and tsunami in Miyako, Iwate prefecture March 14, 2011.

A pleasure boat sits on top of a building amid a sea of debris in Otsuchi town in Iwate prefecture on March 14, 2011. (Yomiuri Shimbun/AFP/Getty Images)

The vast devastation wrought by the earthquake and resulting tsunami that hit Japan on March 11, 2011, may only be matched by the destroyed lives left in their wake. Few survivors have been found, but families continue to search for their sons, daughters, wives, husbands and friends. Threats of a nuclear reactor meltdown and resulting disaster loom. – Paula Nelson

Images provided by GeoEye show the Arahama area of Sendai, Japan on April 10, 2010, left, and March 12, 2011. (GeoEye/Associated Press)

A girl’s shoe sits in flood debris Monday, March 14, 2011, in the coastal area of Soma city, Fukushima prefecture, Japan. (Wally Santana/Associated Press)

found on boston.com

An oncoming tsunami strikes the coast in Natori City, Miyagi Prefecture, northeastern Japan March 11, 2011. The biggest earthquake to hit Japan in 140 years struck the northeast coast on Friday, triggering a 10-metre tsunami that swept away everything in its path, including houses, cars and farm buildings on fire.

Workers inspect a caved-in section of a prefectural road in Satte, Saitama Prefecture, after one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded in Japan slammed its eastern coast March 11. (Saitama Shimbun/Associated Press/Kyodo News).
Vehicles are crushed by a collapsed wall at a carpark in Mito city in Ibaraki prefecture on March 11. (Jiji Press/AFP/Getty Images).

A fishing boat rests surrounded by debri in the city of Kamaishi in Iwate prefecture on March 12. (Yomiuri Shimbun/AFP/Getty Images)
Japanese soldiers make their way atop a wall to get around vehicles swept by a tsunami at Kesennnuma, northeastern Japan March 12. (Kyodo News/Associated Press)

A vessel sits after it was washed away by tsunami into urban area in Kesennuma, Miyagi, northern Japan March 12. (Kyodo News/Associated Press)

Cargo containers are strewn about in Sendai Japan March 12. Japan launched a massive military rescue operation Saturday after a giant, earthquake-fed tsunami killed hundreds of people and turned the northeastern coast into a swampy wasteland, while authorities braced for a possible meltdown at a nuclear reactor. (Itsuo Inouye/Asociated Press)

A volunteer firefighter searches for victims of the tsunami at Rikuzentakada, Iwate Prefecture, northern Japan March 13. (Shizuo Kambayashi/Associated Press)

Vessels washed away by the tsunami sit on land in Minami Soma, Fukushima, northern Japan March 12. (Kyodo News/Associated Press)

found on boston.com

A Greek Fire Service plane clears a hilltop, after just dumping its load of water on a forest fire outside the central Greek city of Thebes on Thursday, July 23, 2009. Six water-dropping planes and two helicopters were involved in the effort to contain the blaze, aided by a lull in high winds that had earlier threatened a village in the area. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris).

A helicopter tries to extinguish a wildfire next to a house near Nuoro, in the centre of Sardinia, Italy on July 23, 2009. (MASSIMO LOCCI/AFP/Getty Images).

Members of the fire brigade “Romeo 10″ of Segovia watch as a tanker plane makes a drop over a fire in Parras, near Avila, Spain on July 29, 2009. (PEDRO ARMESTRE/AFP/Getty Images).

The shadow of a Greek Fire Service plane appears on the ground as smoke rises from a fire outside the central Greek city of Thebes on Thursday, July 23, 2009. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris).

A firefighting helicopter lifts water from a swimming pool in El Arenal, near Avila, Spain as forest fires raged in the region, on July 29, 2009. (PEDRO ARMESTRE/AFP/Getty Images).

A firefighting airplane drops water over a forest fire near Avlonari village on the island of Evia northeast of Athens, Greece on July 30, 2009. (REUTERS/Yiorgos Karahalis).

An airplane dumps water on a forest fire which is burning out of control in Mazo municipality on the southern part of La Palma island in Spain’s Canary Islands on August 2, 2009. (REUTERS/Santiago Ferrero).

A fire-fighting helicopter collects water to control a wildfire in Segorbe, near Valencia, Spain on July 25, 2009. (REUTERS/Heino Kalis)

A firefighting airtanker drops Phos-Check fire retardant over the Gap fire as more than 1,000 wildfires continue burning across about 680 square miles of central and northern California, on July 3, 2008 near Goleta, California. (David McNew/Getty Images)

10 Tanker Air Carrier, a DC-10 jet converted to a firefighting aircraft, drops Phos-Check fire retardant over the Piute fire as more than 1,400 wildfires continue to burn across about 550 square miles of central and northern California, on July 1, 2008 south of Isabella Lake, California. (David McNew/Getty Images

found on boston.com

Somali pirates continue their attacks against international ships in and around the Gulf of Aden, despite the deterrent of stepped-up international naval escorts and patrols – and the increased failure rate of their attacks. Under agreements with Somalia, the U.N, and each other, ships belonging to fifteen countries now patrol the area. Somali pirates – who have won themselves nearly $200 million in ransom since early 2008 – are being captured more frequently now, and handed over to authorities in Kenya, Yemen and Somalia for trial. Collected here are some recent photos of piracy off the coast of Somalia, and the international efforts to rein it in.

A parachute dropped by a small aircraft is observed by the U.S. Navy as it drops over the MV Sirius Star during an apparent payment via a parachuted container to pirates holding the Sirius Star off the coast of Somalia, January 9, 2009. Somali pirates then freed the Saudi supertanker seized in the world’s biggest ship hijacking for a $3 million ransom – but five drowned when their boat capsized as they were making off with their share. (REUTERS/David B. Hudson/U.S. Navy photo/Handout

found on boston.com

After decades of protection, you might think that the world’s whale population is safe.
You would be wrong, at least in part.
According to the WWF wildlife charity, seven out of the 13 great whale species are still endangered or vulnerable.
Commercial whaling is one of the challenges they face, with an estimated 1,000 whales a year killed for the market, says the WWF.
Other hazards include toxic contamination and the effects of climate change.
But a more recent danger has arisen, in the form of collisions with ships.

Doubling of death rates
Nowhere is this phenomenon clearer than in the Mediterranean.
It is now estimated that around 20% of whales found dead in the Mediterranean had collided with a ship.
About 20% of whales found dead in the Mediterranean had collided with ships
When you consider that vessels weighing more than 100 tons cross the Mediterranean around 220,000 times each year, it becomes a little easier to understand why.
This stretch of water has become the maritime equivalent of London’s Piccadilly Circus, without the traffic lights.

One of the species particularly at risk is the fin whale.
A graceful colossus, measuring up to four meters (13 feet) in length, these creatures swim the Mediterranean’s blue waters in a number of areas, but often gather in pods in the northern region between Italy and France to feed.
One recent study published in 2006 by the Marine Pollution Bulletin estimated that there are around 3,500 fin whales in the Mediterranean.
But according to the same report, the numbers dying after collisions has doubled since the 1970s.
“They simply can’t get out of the way of the great cruise liners and other vessels,” says Marco Costantini, from the WWF in Italy.

‘Battering ram’
And the cruise line market has been growing fast. According to Cruise Industry News, in European waters alone, passenger numbers have risen from 3.7 million in 2007 to 4.5 million this year.
A further 16 large vessels are on order for the European market, each one capable of carrying at least 5,000 passengers and crew.
All that extra traffic is potentially bad news for the whales.
They simply can’t get out of the way of the great cruise liners and other vessels”
The biggest obstacle to them is what is known as the ship’s “bulb”, the protruding section of the bow.
Its purpose is to direct the waves around the ship to lessen their impact on it, giving passengers a smoother ride.
But when the ship is at sea this extension careers through the water, under the surface, like a huge battering ram.

The whales do not stand a chance.
Whales: 2 knots. Ships: 22 knots. It is not hard to guess who is going to come off worse.
But now, thanks to a unique venture between one cruise company, WWF, and a number of other technology firms, help is at hand.
Four vessels, including the Costa Pacifica, owned by Costa Cruises, one of the biggest operators in the business, have been fitted with a software system called Repcet.

Repcet allows ships to share real-time information on the location of the whales.
Once a ship spots a whale, the co-ordinates are entered into the system. They are sent, via a satellite connection, to a server in France.
The server then centralises the data and sends out an alert to equipped vessels that are likely to be affected.
The alerts are displayed on a dedicated screen located on the ship’s bridge and it all happens in seconds.
In addition to accurately positioning the whale sightings, the system calculates and displays the associated risk zones. These are displayed as grey circles on the screen.

‘Commercial sense’
The system allows alarms to be programmed in, helping crew members to anticipate potential encounters, thereby avoiding the necessity of continuously watching the mapping screen. Capt Pennisi says the new system is good for ships as well as whales
The area covered by Repcet is about 90,000 sq km.
Massimo Pennisi, the captain of the Costa Pacifica, says he sees a whale “about once a month”.
“This new tracking system works very well. We can adjust speed and direction immediately,” he says, adding that it is also useful for avoiding the giant metal containers that can fall off ships in storms.
“Hitting a whale or a container at a speed of 20-plus knots could be bad news for the ship, so Repcet makes commercial as well as environmental sense,” he adds.
To be truly effective many more vessels will need to join the project.
“It’s a start,” says Marco Costantini from WWF. “It’s also a new direction for a non-governmental organisation like ours to work so closely with the private sector in order to protect wildlife,” he says.

The idea is to eventually expand the system to be applied in any areas where collisions are a known issue, such as the North Atlantic, Japan, and the Canary Islands.
Conservation and commerce are sometimes rivals on the high seas, but now they are setting a common course for the mutual benefit of those both above and below the waves.

found on bbc.co.uk

States of emergency were declared in North Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland amid fears the Category 4 storm could become the most powerful hurricane in almost two decades.
Earl was expected to reach the eastern coastline in the early hours of this morning, battering North Carolina with high winds and heavy rains likely to cause dangerous floods.
More than 35,000 people were evacuated from the Hatteras and Ocracoke islands in Outer Banks as the strongest storm of the year descended on America’s east coast.

Forecasters warned that the potentially deadly storm could move north over the weekend, bringing chaos to America’s Labour Day holiday weekend and cancelling flights.
Millions of beachgoers and surfers who usually head for the beaches during the last weekend of the US summer season were told to keep a close watch on the hurricane’s development.
Warnings were in place up and down the east coast’s popular seaside resorts including Chesapeake Bay and Martha’s Vineyard, where Barack Obama and his family recently holidayed.
A hurricane watch, which means dangerous conditions are possible, was in effect as far north as Maine and the Canadian area of Nova Scotia.

Found on telegraph.co.uk

A ‘rogue wave’ is large, unexpected, and dangerous freak wave!
Rogue, freak, or killer waves have been part of marine folklore for centuries, but have only been accepted as a real phenomenon by scientists over the past few decades.

Rogues, called ‘extreme storm waves’ by scientists, are those waves which are greater than twice the size of surrounding waves, are very unpredictable, and often come unexpectedly from directions other than prevailing wind and waves.

Most reports of extreme storm waves say they look like “walls of water.” They are often steep-sided with unusually deep troughs.

Since these waves are uncommon, measurements and analysis of this phenomenon is extremely rare. Exactly how and when rogue waves form is still under investigation, but there are several known causes:
Constructive interference. Extreme waves often form because swells, while traveling across the ocean, do so at different speeds and directions. As these swells pass through one another, their crests, troughs, and lengths sometimes coincide and reinforce each other. This process can form unusually large, towering waves that quickly disappear. If the swells are travelling in the same direction, these mountainous waves may last for several minutes before subsiding.

Focusing of wave energy. When waves formed by a storm develop in a water current against the normal wave direction, an interaction can take place which results in a shortening of the wave frequency. This can cause the waves to dynamically join together, forming very big ‘rogue’ waves. The currents where these are sometimes seen are the Gulf Stream and Agulhas current. Extreme waves developed in this fashion tend to be longer lived.

A giant wave in the Bay of Biscayne, in an image published in Fall 1993 issue of Mariner’s Weather Log. Credit: NOAA

How high is the highest wave?

Cinemagoers will be familiar with the thrill of giant waves. But what most people don’t know is that the film The Poseidon Adventure is based on an incident involving the Queen Mary in WWII. The famous liner was hit by a giant ‘wall of water’ while she was carrying 15,000 American troops to Britain in 1942. The ship listed to an astonishing 52 degrees and almos capsized. More recently, The Perfect Storm will be familiar to most, providing an account of the sinking of the Andrea Gail south of Newfoundland in 1991.
Such giant waves are rare, and seldom recorded by reliable oceanographic instruments. However, on 1 January 1995 a sensor on a platform in the central North Sea recorded a giant 60ft high wave crest, so ‘freak’ waves are not just tall tails. Giant waves can have disastrous consequences even for the largest ships and offshore structures.
Such waves are thought to be very rare but just how rare? What physics drives such waves? Is a ‘wall of water’ plausible? How should engineers design structures to survive rare but potentially catastrophic events?

Within the last years a high number of large ships has been lost. The causes of accidents are in many cases believed to be ‘rogue waves’. These are individual waves of exceptional wave height or abnormal shape

It is well known that extreme waves often occur in areas were waves propagate into a strong opposing current. A well known example where many large ships have encountered difficulties is the Agulhas current outside South Africa. The strong current going south meets strong swell from storms in the Antarctic Ocean.

found on deathwaves.com

SS America was an ocean liner built in 1940 for the United States Lines and designed by the noted naval architect William Francis Gibbs. She carried many names in the 54 years between her construction and her 1994 wrecking, as she served as the SS America (carrying this name three different times during her career), the USS West Point, the SS Australis, the SS Italis, the SS Noga, the SS Alferdoss, and the SS American Star. She served most notably in passenger service as the SS America, and as the Greek-flagged SS Australis for Chandris. In 1941, she carried two Nazi spies from the Duquesne Spy Ring in her crew: Erwin Wilhelm Siegler and Franz Joseph Stigler. Both men were charged by the FBI with espionage and sentenced to 10 years and 16 years’ imprisonment, respectively.

In February 1993, the ship was sold yet again, with the intention of being refitted to become a five-star hotel ship off Phuket, in Thailand. Drydocking at that time revealed that despite the years of neglect, her hull was still in remarkably good condition. In August she was renamed American Star, her propellers were removed and placed on the deck, the funnel and bridge were painted red, and ladders were welded to starboard. She left Greece on December 22, 1993 under tow, but the tow proved impossible due to the weather. She then returned to Greece for a few days until the weather calmed down. On New Year’s Eve 1993, American Star left Greece for the last time, towed by Ukrainian tugboat Neftegaz 67.
The one hundred day tow began; American Star and Neftegaz 67 entered a thunder storm in the Atlantic. The tow lines broke and six or more men were sent aboard American Star to reattach the emergency tow lines. This proved unsuccessful. Two other towboats were called to assist Neftegaz 67. On January 17, the crew aboard American Star was rescued by helicopter. The ship was left adrift. On January 18, the ship ran aground off the west coast of Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands.

photography by Donibane
found on darkroastedblend.com

Pasha Bulker – a huge freighter grounded in Australia

A 820-foot-long coal freighter sits aground close to Newcastle, Australia – pushed into the sand bank by the storm swell and extreme winds. (more info)
Some of the photographs look like they’d been photoshopped – so unreal is the combination of a beached ship and suburban golf courses and houses.

found on darkroastedblend.com